Effect of vibration direction on the packing of sphero-cylinders

Abstract

Particle packing is widely encountered when coping with granular materials, while mechanical vibration is usually used for packing densification. Vibration direction has been proven to be crucial for the ordered packing of spherical particles, but there are few reports for non-spherical ones in this regard. In this study, the effect of vibration direction on the macroscopic and microscopic packing parameters of sphero-cylinders are systematically examined using discrete element method (DEM). Due to the anisotropic shapes of sphero-cylinders, their packing characteristics are much richer and also more complex than those of spheres. It is found that vibration direction affects both the packing density and the packing structure of sphero-cylinders through tuning their orientation distributions and contact modes. Moreover, vibration direction plays a significant role in determining the optimal vibration intensities for dense packing. When the sphericity of Voronoi cell decreases and/or the density increases, the Nematic order parameter increases accordingly. Besides, no obvious relationship between the packing density and the average contact number is observed.